Data from: Phenotype uniformity in combined-stress environments has a different genetic architecture than in single-stress treatments

For crop production it is desirable for the mapping between genotype and
phenotype to be consistent, such that an optimized genotype produces
uniform sets of individual plants. Uniformity is strongly selected in
breeding programs, usually automatically, as harvest equipment eliminates
severely non-uniform individuals. Uniformity is genetically controlled, is
known to be increased by interplant competition, and is predicted to
increase upon abiotic stress. We mapped maize loci controlling genotype by
environment interaction in plant height uniformity. These loci are
different than the loci controlling mean plant height. Uniformity
decreases upon combining two abiotic stresses, with alleles conferring
greater uniformity in a single stress showing little improvement in a
combined stress treatment. The maize B73 and Mo17 inbreds do not provide
segregating alleles for improvement in plant height uniformity, suggesting
that the genetic network specifying plant height has a past history of
selection for robustness.